Thursday, April 2nd marked the end of the spring Visiting Artist and Scholar Lecture series, produced by the ASU School of Art at Grant Street Studios. The entire series was packed with intellectuals that have diverse practices and ideologies that not only supplemented critical dialog among students and academics, but were also timely and relevant for conversation among the creative and socially-conscious individuals in the valley metro area. However, the disparity in presentation styles and candor was never more lacking than with Anne Rorimer, art historian and curator.

The slight and somewhat unassuming speaker sat behind the presentation desk half reading directly from an essay and half speaking parenthetically to herself. This was a mixture of an endearing, genius, absent-minded professor style of presentation and a strange, fumbling, unprepared, intellectual with an apparent disinterest in her audience. But assuming the best in our visitor, there may have been a mixture of both or something else entirely that is not categorizable. The focus of the lecture was primarily the artwork and life of Michael Asher, esteemed conceptual artist and educator. Rorimer spoke in an art history symposium style, immediately whirl-winding the audience through a litany of historical references, various comparative artists works, personal anecdotes involving the artist, but rarely sharing information about her curatorial and professional development, which are some of the goals of this particular lecture series. After the lecture, an informed audience member casually criticized, “[there was] a complete lack of contextualization of Asher's work within the broader context of conceptual art.” I would add that there was also a disconnect between the speaker and the audience, in that she did not bring us along side to learn about her process or particular research interests, which I am sure are wildly interesting and numerous.

I really believe Asher’s work is fascinating and is one of my own formative contemporary art heroes especially when it comes to questioning the white cube. And of course a white, American, male artist capitalizing on dematerialized, indivisible, site-specific artwork is a conceptual art benchmark in the art work - if nothing else, a birth right. Rorimer stated that artists such as Sol Lewitt, Dan Flavin, Fred Wilson, among others, owe much of their artistic licenses and successes to Michael Asher. Clearly he was quite respected by the art world, including Rorimer. Although I think Michael Asher is an important contemporary artist, I was left wishing that Rorimer had further pushed her reasons for why it is relevant and important for this audience, mostly artists living and working in the contentious border state of Arizona, to continue to idolize Asher. I appreciate curators like Anne Rorimer. She was willing to take risks in the 1960’s and 1970’s with artwork that was questioned, criticized, and debated. Curators like her continue to be necessary today, however, the out of touch position regarding institutional critique is riddled with holes and should be openly criticized especially when presented in the context of a new American university structure.

The ASU School of Art Visiting Artist and Scholar Lecture series is one that occurs every spring from January to April. The invited lecturers present public talks based on their work, research, and life experiences. The community is invited to attend and participate in discussion with the visitors, which of course can result in lively and multi-faceted opinions that are reflexive of the diversity in our community. Next years schedule can be found here: http://art.asu.edu/visitingartists/